Privacy

[...] a new, comprehensive report on the status of facial recognition as a tool in law enforcement shows the sheer scope and reach of the FBI's database of faces and those of state-level law enforcement agencies: Roughly half of American adults are included in those collections. And that massive assembly of biometric data is accessed with only spotty oversight of its accuracy and how it's used and searched.

Tech

This year's U.S. presidential election has been pretty nutty. An algorithm that spews incoherent and outrageous soundbites might not even be the worst candidate in the running.

Just such an algorithm, called Deep Drumpf, has indeed entered the race. Built using a deep-learning algorithm that's been fed the transcripts of numerous Donald Trump speeches, it automatically generates tweets that seem remarkably similar to many of those issued by the candidate himself.

Imagine a world where an authoritarian government monitors everything you do, amasses huge amounts of data on almost every interaction you make, and awards you a single score that measures how "trustworthy" you are.

In this world, anything from defaulting on a loan to criticizing the ruling party, from running a red light to failing to care for your parents properly, could cause you to lose points.

And in this world, your score becomes the ultimate truth of who you are — determining whether you can borrow money, get your children into the best schools or travel abroad; whether you get a room in a fancy hotel, a seat in a top restaurant — or even just get a date.